I have just witnessed something amazing. A butterfly (cabbage white I guess) was fluttering around my vegetables – I just assumed it was going for the kale-ish leaves that are growing (must label plants in future) – and then realised it kept on going back to the same place again and again. I went over to take a look and realised that there were two other white butterflies trapped in some plastic mesh that I had placed over the plants.
Of course I moved the mesh to let them out and the three butterflies flew away. So – the butterfly that kept on returning was obviously trying to free the two trapped ones. Which means that anyone who tries to tell you that insects don’t have a brain or feelings is mistaken!
I am still slightly in awe by what happened. I like to think that it knew I was there and was trying to get my attention – but possibly that is going a bit too far!

Catching up on some BBC podcasts I learned that it has been proved that over-fishing is a major factor in climate change. The reason? Fish poo from bony fish such as cod is necessary to keep the ocean water alkaline. Alkaline ocean water is necessary to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

I am a BIG fan of the Superbowl -we won’t be in the US to watch it this year so will miss out on the ads (which I admit I do enjoy) – and it seems everyone will miss out on the following ad from PETA. Obviously there is no room for sense in the mass of ads for Budweiser and all the others that take up the gaps in play.

I was SO looking forward to going to one of David Jubb’s talks – finally (due to an extended New York trip) I had enough time – only to find the store shuttered with a note posted in the door simply saying they were closed! Gutted wasn’t the word. Does anyone know any more?
New York is very un-New-York-like weather-wise at the moment – drizzly and overcast. And I hear that London is having the most amazing sunny weather – as a New Yorker was telling me last night. As I always say, it is Americans who are obsessed by the weather, not us Brits. Although I guess I should stop writing about it in that case. Mind you it’s just as well it’s not too cold as the water and heating in the apartment keeps on breaking down..
New York is a great place to spend Christmas – loads of shops and cafes stay open, everyone out on the streets looking at the holiday windows in the big stores, and a Radio City Rockettes show on Christmas Day!
Off to Pure Food and Wine tonight for my first ‘proper’ raw meal this trip – have been making do with mixed greens salads so far while all around me gorge themselves on dead animals..

Firstly, apologies for the fact that my first newsletter has not yet come out. I wasn’t in the right place when I was spending all week in an office, and since leaving there I have found out that the site hosting the newsletter doesn’t like the anti-virus software I have on my laptop – with the result that my computer crashes whenever I try to start writing the newsletter. Watch this space..

I am just about feeling normal again after leaving the property company I have been working at for the last three months. I found it very hard going backwards in my life to work somewhere that I left 8 years ago – but needs must, I have a trip to Raw Spirit to fund and also a dog sitting trip to New York coming up later in the year.

I took advantage of my last few weeks at the office to do the Master Cleanse for the first time – I didn’t manage the full 10 days as I was teaching a workshop on day 7, but went back to it after the workshop. I came across the book by Tom Woloshyn when I was in Boston last month, and found it very convincing – I had never really ‘got’ the Master Cleanse before then. I won’t go into the details but suffice to say that I didn’t feel hungry at all while I was doing it – which I found incredible, as anyone who knows me knows that I like my food! I tinkered a bit with the recipe for the lemonade – and I did have the odd lemon mousse by adding psyllium to the lemonade mixture. And I felt absolutely fine all the way through, keeping up my normal exercise routine and going to work every day.

My next aim is to do it again and keep it up for the full 10 days this time.

Interestingly, there was an article in a Sunday supplement on cleanses the other day – and of course the Master Cleanse was slated as a fraud. They trotted out all the usual quotes by nutritionists that there is not sufficient nutrition in the lemonade mixture – well correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t the whole point that one is giving one’s digestive system a rest… it’s supposed to be a cleanse, not a long term diet. I wonder if the nutritionists these magazines always call on have ever tried cleansing themselves?

From cleansing to healing – tomorrow I am going to a cacao healing ceremony. Sounds a bit more fun than drinking lemon juice and maple syrup –

And did you know that compassion and bliss share the same brain wave pattern? With thanks to Laura Fox’s fantastic Raw Spirit Radio Show for that gem!

Apparently GM sugar is about to hit the shelves in the US (and to follow here soon?) and Kelloggs have refused to source only non-GM sugar – so – if you are still eating processed food containing sugar then be warned!

Discussions are going on at the moment to bring in EU rules to limit the maximum strength of supplements – Consumers for Health Choice have a great link on their site which takes you to some standard letters to send to the powers that be if you wish to make your opinion heard.

And – while Wimbledon managed to fit the best ever game in inbetween showers we were not so lucky at the Henley Regatta. Not that rowing really interests me, but it is one of the Great British Events of the summer. And of course we got married at Phyllis Court right next to the finish line. The weather wasn’t quite so nice to us last weekend…

So there I was minding my own business, chatting to Liam about buying a micro-food farm to grow my own food, when he starts filming me, and next thing I know I am on IsTube. I actually talked non-stop for half an hour, luckily he edited it down to 10 minutes so you don’t have to get too bored.

It’s the morning after my amazing massage and my body is still tingling. Let’s see how my morning run goes.

I have just had the best massage ever. And I mean ever. That is it, I am never going to waste my time getting a massage from anyone else. 2 hours of pretty much non-stop agony from Pan. At first I tried to be very brave and not make a sound, but as soon as she told me that she has men screaming in pain during her massages I decided to let it out. Her advice was to ‘think of nice things’ but that was beyond even my vivid imagination. She found really hard deep rooted knots in my muscles, and also in tendons that I didn’t even know I had!
And despite the agony, I am going back next week for my second session (she recommended three sessions over three weeks in order to get the knots out). As I walked home my legs felt like they didn’t belong to me, my neck feels longer and looser (I can drop my head back totally effortlessly now) and over two hours later I am still tingling.
The toxins started coming out almost as soon as she started – within a few minutes my nose had blocked up and I had to breathe out of my mouth. And bear in mind I have been raw for over 2 years and practise yoga every day…
And I’m not sure exactly what was shaken loose inside me, but on the way home I was craving a glass of cold white wine – and the only time I ever have wine is when I am on holiday with Andrew. Otherwise I don’t even think about it. And once I got home all I wanted to was listen to Coldplay. What is all that about?!

My next workshop is August 31st, please see the workshops page for information. The next one after that will be in October, as September looks very busy with the London Vegan Festival (where I am running a raw chocolate workshop and will have a stall) The Festival of Life and of course The Raw Spirit Festival in beautiful Sedona. Last year this festival was absolutely amazing, and I am sure it will be even better this year.

I have just been to Provence for a week on a cycling holiday. It was an organised group thing but of course we did our own thing – to the extent of deciding one day to try and beat Iban Mayo’s record of cycling up Mt Ventoux (the third highest peak on the Tour). We didn’t quite get the record (his is 45 mins – it took us about 4 hours) but although it was way harder than I expected I would do it again tomorrow. Mainly for the best ever feeling cycling back down – 45 minutes and that was with the brakes on for a lot of the way!

Raw in France was possible but dull – mainly lettuce and tomato with smuggled avocado. And the only organic produce I found was some bananas. At one point we came across a guy on a tractor who had obviously been spraying some fruit trees – kind of scarey that he looked like he was on a space mission with his head totally enclosed in a bubble. And to think we are eating that food. It made me so grateful to live in London where organic food is so easily available.

By the end of the week my body was crying out for some proper nutrition – next time I go abroad I am going to make sure I take along enough spirulina and maca to last me – I have practically been inhaling these since I got back!

The Sunday night saw us attempting to find another SAF in the Besiktas area of the city. Again, it wasn’t easy, but after the taxi driver stopping about four times to ask friendly locals the way we eventually found it, as part of a very upmarket sports club. The indoor cafe was a bit smelly, and had the interesting view of sweaty people on treadmills, but luckily they had an outside area where once again they had a SAF menu and also a meat menu. So Andrew was lucky again. The menu was the full SAF menu this time and I ended up with some mini pizzas (one of which had a herbed seed cheese on top which was just like the seed cheese I demo in my workshops!) and some apple cake. Although there were others dining there, it looked like we were the only ones ordering from the SAF menu – although to be fair I would think that it would be more busy during the day than the evening. The waiter was absolutely lovely – he had originally worked at the now closed SAF, and I think somewhere along the way he got the idea that I was a personal friend of Chad’s! So we ended up with another free dessert (cacao cheesecake), which I ended up having for breakfast the next day. My turkish friend just could not believe that chocolate cheesecake was a perfectly normal breakfast..